Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start

I can't help but think of Sr. Maria's instruction in music to the Von Trapp children whenever I think about Protestant theology, particularly regarding creation. If a few Fundamentalists would sit at the feet of the truly wise as the children that they are, Christianity would be much better for it.

There has been some hoopla lately over teachings on evolution by Cardinals Schonborn and McCarrick where the Cardinals have (rightly) indicated that there is no contradiction between the science of evolution and the sacred story of Genesis provided that we avoid the traps of Darwinian and neo-Darwinian evolution that presume random chance as the actor in evolution rather than a divine intelligence.

Catholics are taught that God created mankind with an emptiness that only God can fill. Part of that emptiness manifests in a desire to open that which is closed and illuminate that which is in darkness. Because of that we strive to understand and explain the universe that God created for us. The evidence that we obtain through science is evidence toward revelation of a sacred mystery. The evidence itself is neither good nor evil, but the conclusions that we draw from that evidence may be. The evidence is what it is, revelation of individual pieces of a divine puzzle.

Let's review the important messages from Genesis:

1. God created the universe and everything in it
2. God created mankind to be special and different from His other creations
3. A sinful nature is a key aspect of the human makeup; however, God did not create sin or that aspect of our nature
4. The sacred story of creation foreshadows the Divine Plan

Specific details of creation in the sacred story reflect the cosmological and ecological understanding of the time period in which the sacred story was written. The scientific accuracy of the sacred story is not important to the theological message.

So Catholics are taught that we must believe that God created the universe and everything in it. How that creation took place is a mystery. How we attempt to explain that mystery reflects our understanding at the time we choose to attempt the explanation. The writers of sacred scripture in antiquity had a very limited understanding of science, and their attempt at explanation of the mystery reflects that. Accepting this limitation of the scripture authors is in no way a denial of sacred scripture, but rather indicative of a deeper and more mature understanding of what sacred scripture is and what it isn't.